Thursday, December 31, 2015

New Year’s
Goals are my favourite time of the year. Anyone knows me knows I love setting,
and meeting, goals. I set my goals every month, every week and every day. I
have a day planner and every morning I sit down and write a list of all the
things I have to achieve and cross them off one by one. I also use Habitica to
do the same thing.

New Years is
a special goal setting for me though, because as you can imagine, someone who
is completely obsessive about lists is also pretty fond of round numbers and
arbitrary, but socially significant beginnings.

As with most
years, I spent much of 2015 not meeting my goals because of severe health
issues. However despite that, I still managed to write more than 400, 000 words
and edit over 1300 pages. Which was pretty good for someone who spent no more
than one day a week off the couch for the entire year.

This year, I
am going bigger and better.

My 400k word
count of 2015 was quadruple my 2014 word count. So in 2016 I am aiming to
double that again to 800k+, which is only an average of 2190 words a day (haha
hahahaha).

Azim Premji
said: “If people are not laughing at your
goals, your goals are too small.”

I have been
a firm believer in this for a long time. I always aim much, much higher than I
think I will be able to achieve. Five, ten even twenty times higher than I
think is reasonable. Why? Because when the goal is that much further a way, you
have to work a lot harder to even have a chance at coming close.

Every year I
fail to meet my goals. However every year people are completely floored by how
much I have achieved. There is method to the madness.

This year I
am making all of my goals very public. Why? Because I’m probably going to fail.
I’m also probably going to achieve amazing things. If you see me reaching 400,
000 words and you think ‘wow, that’s amazing!’ but you may not realise I was
aiming for a million.

Maybe at the
end of the year I am going to look like a bit of an idiot for falling so far
short of the goals I am setting for myself. But I also want to be accountable.
I want the knowledge that other people know what I am striving for to push me a
little bit harder, if only to save face at this time next year.

So without
further ado, here is my current plan for 2016. Some of these items may
change—they may need to be moved, or removed completely, if my circumstances
change. Flexibility is part of the process. But as of right now, these are my
intentions for the year:

JANUARY:

- Aurealis reading

FEBRUARY:

- Edit Lifesphere 2 (Dystopian Middle Grade)

MARCH:
- Bonefall – 80k (Dystopian YA)

APRIL:

- Lifesphere 3 – 50k

MAY:
- Edit Enterria 1 (Epic Fantasy)

JUNE:

- Cover art: Lifesphre 2 & 3

- Launch Lifesphere book 2

JULY:

- Edit His
Majesty’s Favor. (Diesel Punk Gay Romance)

AUGUST:

- Lifesphere 4 – 50k

SEPTEMBER:

- Edit Bonefall

OCTOBER:

- Edit Lifesphere 3

- Lifesphere 4 cover art

NOVEMBER:

- Pingbreak – 80k (Dystopian YA)

DECEMBER:

- Launch Lifesphere book 3

- Edit Lifesphere 4

Two of those projects (Enterria and His Majesty’s Favor) are still
dependant on signing a contract with my co-author. And you may also notice
there is several hundred thousand words not accounted for in my intended word
count for the year. They are also set aside for co-authored projects not listed
here. However as my co-author has a full time job and other commitments, they
can’t simply be blocked into utilitarian time frames. They also seem to run
much faster than expected when we are having a good time.

I also have
two other major goals for 2016. One is financial and one is related to my
health.

Those of you
who haven’t known me for years, probably don’t realise that around 2008 I
weighed over 90kgs. After a really hard push in the past two years I have got
my weight down to 60kg, which feels healthy to me. So one of my major goals
this year is to remain between 59.0kg and 60.9kgs. Once my weight has been
stable for about six months, I may decide to drop a little more. But due to some
recent issues with not being able to eat and losing weight too rapidly, my
primary goal right now is stability.

Now, I know
you should never talk about money, but here we go. In 2015 I earned just under
$30, 000. $29, 000+, I don’t have the exact figure yet, I’m waiting for a
cheque to clear. So my entirely unreasonable, outrageous and unobtainable goal
for this year is.... $500, 000. Yes, I want to jump from 30k, to half a million
in 12 months. Doomed to fail? Almost definitely. But I’ve said it now. So the
egg will be on my face at the end of next year.

But what if
I slam as hard as I can, racing for 500k, and I manage to double my income to
60K? It’s way sort of my goal. Not even a quarter. But is anyone going to laugh
at the chronically ill, chronically disabled chick who managed to get of her
disability pension and double her income in 12 months?

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About Me

Born in 1985, Talitha is a geeky Australian writer who spends an unhealthy amount of time reading and watching horror movies. She also loves fresh water shrimps and snakes, and lives in a house dominated by various tanks housing both. She advises that shrimps are the best companions for writers; as they always look like they are typing. Snakes, on the other hand, simply knock everything off your desk—including keyboards, mugs, entire computers and shrimp tanks.
Talitha’s other interests include entomology, rock climbing, reading, web design, photography and video gaming.